The Mexican Federal Telecommunications Institute (Ifetel) has declared that América Móvil units Telmex and Telcel are prevailing economic operators in the telecommunications sector. Ifetel had already named Televisa the dominant operator in the broadcasting sector. According to local news reports, unlike the television agency, América Móvil has not indicated that it would take legal measures.
Billionaire Carlos Slim’s América Móvil controls about 80% of Mexico’s fixed-line business via its Telmex unit and some 70% of the mobile sector through its Telcel unit.
Luca Schiavoni, regulation analyst at Ovum, said the decision was widely expected, and it is the natural consequence of recent reforms passed by the newly appointed government. “In particular, the measures passed with regard to the mobile sector may appear harsh compared to international standards, but they have justification given the clear lack of competition in that market with penetration standing still below 90% while neighboring countries have boomed in the last few years. And Telmex’s mobile arm consolidated its leading position with more than two thirds of the subscriber base,” he said in a statement.
Ifetel will determine the interconnection rates charged by Telmex and Telcel to other operators in the future. The companies must also share infrastructure and unbundle the local network through rates stipulated by the regulatory body.
Schiavoni said it is urgent that secondary legislation be passed to complete last year’s reforms. “Ifetel’s powers still need to be defined more in detail, and an updated telecommunications act that reflects the recent constitutional changes is necessary,” he said. The analyst believes the measures are important for competition in the Mexican market. “This should be seen as a promising start; it may also help attract more foreign investment, which will also play a key role in delivering the necessary growth,” Schiavoni said.
Commenting on the legislative plans, Ifetel head Gabriel Contreras told Reuters that the measures also prevent evasion of regulation through a subsidiary.
Wireless in Latin America: The Latin American and Caribbean region ended 2013 with 37 commercial LTE networks launched in 18 countries and a total of 1.7 million connections. Bob Calaff, director of Latin America and the Caribbean at 4G Americas, pointed out that “mobile broadband is truly taking flight in Latin America, and in the space of the past several years since HSPA/HSPA+ and LTE networks have begun to proliferate in the region, over one in four mobile connections is now a mobile broadband connection,” he said. 4G Americas forecasts that there will be 6.4 million LTE connections in the region at the end of 2014 and 82.4 million LTE connections by 2018.
Despite the growth, the most used technology in Latin American and the Caribbean is still GSM with 497.4 million connections, accounting for 69.9% of the total market at the end of 2013. The region counted 191.6 million HSPA/HSPA+ connections, representing 26.9% of the market. There were 101 commercial HSPA networks including 75 HSPA+ networks in 37 countries.
Chilean complaints: Chilean telecom regulator Subtel released a ranking of customer complaints for the period of January 2013 to November 2013. According to the report, the number of telecommunications service complaints decreased by 7.8% compared to 2012. Part of the drop came from a decrease in complaints related to mobile Internet which fell by 6% compared to 2012, mainly due to the decrease in complaints for Entel (13%) and Movistar (28%). For this service, Claro had the largest increase with 40.5%. As for mobile broadband Internet speed connections, the company with the best average speed was Entel with 3.7 Mbps, followed by Movistar with 2.6 Mbps and VTR with 2.2 Mbps.
Subtel also unveiled that there were 23,659,441 mobile active lines in December last year, representing a mobile penetration of 134.2 subscribers per 100 inhabitants. The market is led by prepaid plans, representing 71% of the total market with 16,629,069 subscribers. Meanwhile, postpaid totaled 7,030,372 (29% of market share). Movistar holds first place in terms of market share with 38.49%, followed by Entel with 37.50% and Claro with 21.78%. New entrants Virgin Mobile, Nextel and VTR have close to 2.2% of the market.
The mobile Internet 3G market share is spread between Movistar and Entel with 42.88% and 33.51% respectively. Claro holds 19%.
Wells Fargo on NII Holdings: Wells Fargo released a statement about NII Holdings’ recent retention of a financial advisor (UBS Investment Bank) to explore strategic opportunities and advise the company regarding its capital structure to improve its longer term liquidity position. Jennifer M. Fritzsche, Wells Fargo senior analyst, said that the move was not completely surprising, following the earnings call on Feb. 28, when NII management said the company “will have sufficient funding for 2014, but we will need to significantly improve our operating performance and consider other actions to enhance our liquidity position so that we can meet our financial obligations and fund our business in 2015 and beyond.” Fritzsche said NIHD was in compliance with its covenants as of YE2013, and NII Holdings ended 2013 with $2.4 billion in cash (longer term debt was $5.8 billion).
More news from Latin America:
- State-owned telco Empresa Hondurena de Telecomunicaciones (Hondutel) has reportedly attracted the attention of an unspecified number of Israeli and French companies, some of which are willing to invest up to $50 million in the stricken operator.
- Cuban local media reported that state-owned operator Etecas will start providing residential internet access via ADSL during the first half of September.
- Claro Colombia launched LTE services in Medellín. It’s the second city where the carrier has deployed LTE networks.
- Brazil’s Anatel released several new rules that telecom operators will have to comply with in the next 120 days. Anatel said the main objective of the rules is to better serve customers. In mid-2012, the regulator banned three mobile operators from selling new lines due to the volume of customer complaints.
- Chile’s senate passed the Digital Television Law.
- The National Telecommunications Corporation (CNT in Spanish) will invest $499 million in 2014, which will be used to deploy fiber optics, Internet ports, mobile networks and pay television services, among other investments.
- Alcatel-Lucent announced that Outremer Telecom, a subsidiary of Altice, will offer a project linking 4G LTE and cable by deploying a 4G LTE ultra-broadband access network in French Guiana.
- Dominican telecom watchdog, Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (Indotel), has approved the sale of Dominican integrated telecoms services provider Tricom to the Luxembourg-based Altice Group.
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